site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8350 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The thing about all these "kids without parents" stories, is I mean, they aren't on their face unbelievable. Tragedy happens. But they'd be a lot more believable if it wasn't random twitter accounts, or photos of screenshots of text messages from some guy.

I wasn't 100% on board with the whole "FEMA is blocking aid" stories coming out until Elon Musk personally attested that an engineer on his payroll in North Carolina was being blocked. That is a concrete event with names we can verify. Would Elon lie about that? Or misunderstand or exaggerate? Maybe. But it's a starting point of a concrete claim that can be verified.

I have seen more videos of local sheriffs, helicopter pilots who'd been running rescue missions, etc coming forward and saying FEMA is blocking aid. Are these real sheriffs? Are these real pilots who really rescued a wife and then was blocked by FEMA from going back for the husband? Don't fucking know, but it's slightly better than "photo of a screenshot of a random text message".

I doubt I'll ever know how much of this was real and how much was fake. Especially since I'm already seeing the "It's all Russian misinformation" meme getting rolled out, and the precursors to "actually what caused excess deaths are all the people spreading misinformation". So fuck me I guess. We'll be arguing about how many died and who's fault it was until this passed out of living memory.

The temporary flight restriction Musk was complaining about is a matter of record, and it's the same one involved in the other incidents. You can argue about which Federal agency is responsible (the FAA issued it of course, but who asked for it is another matter), but there's no doubt it existed.

I have seen one report on X/Twitter of supplies being confiscated that was literally translated from the Russian. Not sure if Russian trolls or other trolls pretending to be Russian trolls.

The helicopter pilot being told he'd be arrested if he kept working was told that by a local fire chief, not FEMA.

Trigger warning: this is an infuriating story and the followup makes it quite a bit worse. https://youtube.com/watch?v=s8ICG0iaHqw

Any single "kid without parents" story has not been credible, just like any single "I saw a truck full of dead bodies" story is not credible. Dozens of seemingly independent stories make it more credible. I'm not 100% convinced that there is a naked kid survivor still tied to a tree, or what the maximal claim might be. I am pretty sure it is confirmed that this event has created some orphans, potentially stranding kids without any adult supervision entirely for hours, days, who knows if there's still a kid out there all alone? We wouldn't know, because they'd be alone. With communications down for so long, and people spread out in remote communities, no one can say they have the full grasp of the tragedy yet.

I am pretty convinced at this point that the death toll is in the thousands, and give 50% odds that this final death toll will not be on the official news until after the election. There are just too many reports of people saying they personally saw dead bodies, spread out across a wide geographical region.

I’ll take that bet.

Based on my friends and family in the area, I figured the death toll would stay under 500, possibly 300. This is a first-world country and there aren’t that many unaccounted for.

$100 to a charity of your choice if the official figure clears 1000 by the end of the year?

I would strongly encourage you to define what 'official figure' means, before making that bet. An 'excess deaths' measurement like used after Maria will give drastically higher results than those marked as storm-related by a coroner.

@OracleOutlook, what say you? I get the impression we’re both talking about coroner-marked deaths, i.e. drownings, contaminated water, or injuries. Is there a site we can agree on?

Would you like to use https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/index.php?season=2024&basin=atl when the report becomes available?

Agreed.

  • 72 direct and 87 indirect for Sandy
  • 520 direct, 565 indirect, 307 indeterminate for Katrina
  • 66 direct, 90 other for Ian

Those appear to cover dehydration, hypothermia, car accidents, etc. but not “excess mortality.” So unless they’ve changed their methodology in the last few years, I’m good with it.

Sounds good. As far as bets go, it sounds like I win either way. Either I win the dubious honor of being able to read the tea leaves Twitter vibes, or I win fewer people dying in reality.

Make it a hurricane survivor charity for better symbolism?

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats